This just in from Don Cherry, the legendary commentator on Coach’s Corner, his concern that the Edmonton Oilers may regret beating the Anaheim Ducks so bad on Sunday.

Cherry compared it to San Jose beating the Oilers 7-0 in the first round, noting Oilers coach Todd McLellan used the massive loss to motivate his team to come back hard and win the next game.

“You remember the last score? 7-1.” Cherry said of the Oilers-Ducks game. “They rubbed it in. And they had [Connor] McDavid on in the last minute. When you do stuff like that, Carlyle is going to grab that just like McLellan did. Never rub it in.

“You never rub it in because it always comes back to get you in the end.”

Cherry’s take stands in opposition to what Sportsnet game analysts Nick Kypreos and Kelly Hrudey said on game night Sunday between the second and third periods, with the Oilers up 7-1.

Kypreos wondered how much the Oilers would play McDavid in the third period and noted they would not want him to get hurt.

Then he added: “The last thing you want if you’re Todd McLellan and his coaching staff is to turn a 7-1 game after 40 minutes into an 8-5 game and they end up with 20 shots on goal and all of a sudden Anaheim is embarrassed as they are get something of out of this third period going back for Game 7.”

Host Ron MacLean said he took note when McDavid started on the power play late in the second period after a Josh Manson penalty. “I thought, ‘Oh boy, if you run up the score.’ Are you concerned about that… I’m asking you, Nick, do you have a problem with it?”

“I would roll four lines,” Kypreos said of the Oilers. “I would not want to take them out of any type of rhythm at all. They feel good. They don’t want to sit on the bench, but you certainly have to pay attention to the fact that you don’t have to have them out for five or six minutes in the third period.”

Analyst Kelly Hrudey then interjected: “I know I’m unique in this, and most people don’t agree with me, but when it’s 7-1 make it 12-2 or something like that. Just bury ’em. And make sure that you crush any sort of spirit or will that they have.”

My take

Connor McDavid played just four shifts in the third period against the Ducks. Compare that to the nine shifts he got in the first period. I will assume Cherry actually meant to say McDavid was out on a power play in the “last minutes,” because McDavid did not see the ice in the last six minutes and 30 seconds of the third period. He wasn’t out in the last minute on any power play. He played a grand total of 4:10. That said, he did play one power play that started with 8:38 left, and he stayed out the full two minutes, then McLellan shut him down. It’s hard to say McLellan overplayed him to any great extent and given that he’s been in a bit of scoring slump — at least by his standards — why not try to break him out of that?

If I had my way McLellan would have played David Desharnais, Benoit Pouliot and Jordan Eberle with Eric Gryba and Griffin Reinhart every second shift of the third. I’m only slightly exaggerating, but my main concern was the one Kypreos raised, the need for everyone to stay healthy. Fortunately, both teams called off the physical play to some extent in the third, save for the one big blow up between Milan Lucic and Ryan Kesler late in the game.

Overall, I’m inclined to agree with Hrudey. Don’t worry about the other team, worry about your own, and that means having them play hockey the right way at all times. Never take your foot off the gas.

Cherry makes sense in one regard, that after teams are humiliated, they yearn and burn to come back and redeem themselves. Good teams are also able to do so, as we saw with the Oilers this past year, while bad teams just keep getting whipped, as we saw with the Oilers from 2009-15. This Ducks team are a good team and they’ve been kicked hard. They are a dangerous wounded beast fighting for its life. That is bad news for the Oilers.

That said, when it comes to motivation, I still think McLellan has the trump card, the one where the Oilers got absolutely and unbelievably robbed by the Ducks, the referees and the NHL in Game 4 and even more in Game 5 with two missed calls on obvious goaltender interference plays. That has still got to burn, and all McLellan has to point out is that it’s the Oilers against the world here, the Oilers against the Ducks, their fans, the refs and the NHL, and the only way for the Oilers to take what rightfully belongs to them — a victory in this series — is to come out and keep skating and stomping on the Ducks until they’re defeated in Game 7.

Cult of Hockey Game 7 preview podcast

What does Edmonton have going for it heading into Game 7 against the Anaheim Ducks? Better motivation, a better goalie, Oscar Klefbom back in and, at last, some line match-ups against the Ducks that really make sense. But will that be enough to beat Anaheim? David Staples and Bruce McCurdy of The Cult of Hockey dig in.

Hrudey, a former Los Angeles Kings goalie, was part of the hockey panel that appeared in the second period. Host George Stroumboulopoulos started off the segment saying that the Oilers must make changes this summer. “Guys got to go. There’s no doubt that guys got to go. This is really frustrating, watching the last two periods, highly offensive players but watching guys just not do their job. Who goes?”

“Well, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is Jordan Eberle that has to go,” said Hrudey. “Keep in mind that the team that gets him is getting an incomplete player. I want to show you the first goal of the Flames and why Jordan Eberle refuses to put in the work to become a really great hockey player, because he’s good offensively.”

Kelly Hrudey

Hrudey then showed the Oilers power play in the first where Connor McDavid failed to get a bobbling puck in deep and turned the puck over at the offensive blueline. Eberle was a step behind his man, Mikael Backlund, who stole the puck. Backlund beat Eberle up the ice, mainly because it looked like Oilers dman Jordan Oesterle might win the puck, and instead of sticking on Backlund, Eberle stopped skating, as if anticipating a pass from Oesterle. “If he would have only continued on he could have taken away that play.”

Hrudey next showed an offensive rush by Eberle. “Got lots of power now, lots of speed, no problem there going up ice. That to me proves beyond a reasonable doubt because he’s in his sixth year that he does not care enough to be a complete player.

“You know why I can do this now? Because I was patient with him for two or three years. Like all guys. He’s good offensively and he deserves patience but at some point, he’s 25 years old, when do you just give up on him and say, ‘Go elsewhere, get your cookies, your points, whatever, but I don’t need you any more.'”

My take

Hrudey’s comment certainly stirred up Edmonton fans, with some strongly agreeing and others saying the commentator had gone too far. My take is that Hrudey was fair to some extent in that Eberle does indeed need to improve his defensive play, especially his hustle on the backcheck. On the other hand, while Hrudey mentions Eberle’s offensive contributions, he speaks of them derisively as a symbol of Eberle’s selfishness, downplaying the significance of scoring.

Since 2011-12, when Eberle matured as a point scorer in his second season, he has put up more points at right wing than any NHLer other than Patrick Kane, Phil Kessel, Joe Pavelski, Corey Perry, Marian Hossa, Blake Wheeler, Jakub Voracek and James Neal. Eberle is extremely close to all these players, save for Kane, in terms of points per game. In points scoring, he is just ahead of players like Jarome Iginla, Jaromir Jagr, Thomas Vanek, Justin Williams, Kyle Okposo, Bobby Ryan and Loui Eriksson.

What a big, fat group of selfish cookie lovers!

Eberle certainly needs to improve the defensive aspect of his game. But Eberle is an elite NHL scorer and he won’t easily be replaced. He’s the kind of player that teams covet, not discard, just in case it’s the suggestion that Edmonton should cast him off for dimes on the dollar.

The bigger problem on Edmonton isn’t Eberle, it’s the organization’s inability to properly handle and teach its star players. In 2011-12 players like Eberle were making progress in regards to their defensive game under coach Tom Renney and his assistant Ralph Krueger, but things went off track when former Oilers GM Steve Tambellini fired Renney. They have never gotten back on track, and to single out Eberle as the problem on such a team is a bit rich.

The problem has been Oilers management, which was finally changed last spring when Bob Nicholson, Peter Chiarelli and Todd McLellan took over.

If they see a player like Eberle as refusing to buy in to the new program, yes, move the player.

Or if they see the need to get bigger and tougher or to trade a forward for a defencemen, yes, move him.

There can’t be one Edmonton Oilers player who is feeling anything but miserable after Saturday night’s 5-to-0 loss to the Calgary Flames, but I suspect Connor McDavid, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jordan Eberle have ears that are burning the most fiercely.

Eberle, of course, was the subject of an epic rip by Sportsnet’s Kelly Hrudey after the game where Hrudey quite rightly lambasted the veteran Oilers forward for his weak backchecking.

The slam on McDavid and Nugent-Hopkins came in coach Todd McLellan’s post-game rant. It happened during a blistering critique of the game and of the Oilers players in general, a development that was no surprise given that the Oilers are now playing out the string and putting in a rancid effort about one in four or five games. This has got to be disheartening for any coach, but McLellan is also used to winning and is embarrassed by the lack of effort, as he admitted in his rant.

The coach got going after columnist Terry Jones of the Sun asked if that was an embarrassing and humiliating effort. Here’s McLellan’s answer at length with the part singling out McDavid and Nugent-Hopkins in italics.

“I don’t know if there’s a number big enough or how to describe how disappointing that effort is. We’ve been together for 200 days and talked a lot about competing and working hard and holding your hand and showing up, and we get that. And that’s the exact crap that we’re trying to eradicate from this point. So you work hard and you climb, and you climb, and you climb, and at least you get some foundation in, and you give it all back in one night. We were out-shot, out-hit, we were out-scored, we were out face-offed, out power-played, out penalty-killed, our shift lengths were terrible. They played four games in six nights and we’re going to go for 55 second shifts? We turned the puck over 1:10 into a shift and then cheated on a change. We had a center change for a center who happened to be two zones away. I don’t know how that can happen.

The coach continued: “So I guess when you sum it all up like that, that’s really disappointing, isn’t it? And that’s the exact attitude and bullshit that we’re trying to eliminate here. Ad we see it after 200 days. Disappointing… Forget about the wins and the loss, just the effort. That’s frickin’ embarrassing.”

The too long shift in question starts for Connor McDavid at 15:57 of the second period. His linemates Jordan Eberle and Patrick Maroon switched on fifteen seconds later.

The first part of the shift saw scrambly play, with McDavid eventually getting a bad angle but tricky shot on the Calgary net. After the shot, at 15:05, with McDavid already out 52 seconds, the Flames broke out fast. McDavid had no choice by to stay out, as he was the first forward back on the backcheck. The Flames then pressed for a time in the Oil’s zone. Finally, at 14:35, with McDavid now on the ice for 1:22, Eberle cleared the puck into the Flames zone. It wasn’t an effective enough clearance to make a full line-change, but either Eberle or McDavid, and maybe both of them, could have got to the bench if they had hustled off just then — and I suspect that’s the moment were McLellan started to boil.

The Flames quickly counter-attacked, dumping the puck in deep at 14:35. Calgary’s forwards had to change by then, which allowed for Maroon and Eberle to get off the ice after a 75-second shift.

Taylor Hall and Leon Draisaitl took their place, with Nugent-Hopkins waiting on the bench to take McDavid’s spot. McDavid skated out from the Oilers end and to the bench, but just as he crossed the blueline Nugent-Hopkins inexplicably hopped on the ice, which precipitated a too-many-men-on-the-ice call, the kind of thing that makes a coach look bad. At 14:17, McDavid left the ice. His shift had been 100 seconds long.

My take

What to make of all this? In general, McLellan is evidently fed up with every player about now. He took no prisoners in the fullness of his rant, blasting the entire team. He’s sounding like a coach who is sharpening his knife for upcoming meetings with Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli on which players to keep, which to cut outright and which to trade. Edmonton will soon enough be making major moves, and one or two or three of former GM Craig MacTavish’s old core of Hall, Eberle, Nugent-Hopkins and Schultz will be on the move in trade. Other players will be let go and we will see one (Andrew Ference) and maybe two (Lauri Korpikoski or Mark Fayne) buy-outs of bad contracts.

As for the play that McLellan singled out on a night where there were many bad plays, McLellan didn’t name names, as that is not his style. McDavid and Nugent-Hopkins are also highly conscientious players. But this particular mistake was notable.

McDavid stayed out way too long, which we’ll write off as a rookie mistake. There’s never been any lack of try in the kid’s game — not even remotely close. That said, his coach is rightly upset with him taking a 100 second shift. If there’s going to be a culture change it starts with McLellan and McDavid being on the same page, and the coach has got to make sure his star player is getting it right.

The penalty on the play, however, came because Nugent-Hopkins jumped the gun on the change. A mental error by the veteran, though perhaps his coach will write it off to a player being rusty in his first game back from a concussion. That said, such mental errors due to a lack of focus, along with errors like lame backchecking that come from a lack of effort, tend to stick in a coach’s mind, slowly building until at last the coach erupts, as McLellan just did.

]]>http://edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/nhl/cult-of-hockey/which-edmonton-oilers-ears-are-burning-hottest-today-connor-mcdavid-ryan-nugent-hopkins-and-jordan-eberle/feed0STK-oilers-Todd-McLellandavidstaplesedmontonMcDavid.RNHCult of Hockey: No matter what Fischler says, McDavid excellent bet to win NHL Rookie of the Yearhttp://edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/nhl/cult-of-hockey/no-matter-what-fischler-says-mcdavid-an-excellent-bet-to-win-nhl-rookie-of-the-year
http://edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/nhl/cult-of-hockey/no-matter-what-fischler-says-mcdavid-an-excellent-bet-to-win-nhl-rookie-of-the-year#respondSun, 21 Feb 2016 20:00:09 +0000http://edmontonjournal.com/?p=463552]]>Hrudey nails it with what NHL insiders really think of The Kid

When it comes to putting up points, only one NHLer, Patrick Kane, has more points per game than Connor McDavid this year.

In 61 games, Kane has 83 points, 1.36 per game. With 27 points in 23 games, 1.17 per game, McDavid is second. The rookie is just ahead of Jamie Benn of Dallas, who is at 1.12 points per game.

It’s evident that if he hadn’t been injured McDavid would be in the conversation for the National Hockey League’s Most Valuable Player award. As it stands, McDavid can only hope to win the Rookie of the Year award, with his main competition being Kane’s constant linemate, Artemi Panarin, who has 57 points in 59 games for the Blackhawks.

Two days ago veteran hockey writer Stan Fischler tweeted out: “It’s getting close to the time to forget about Connor McDavid for the Calder. Right now you have to like Artemi Panarin’s chances. Yes?”

Fischler has been writing about hockey for decades and he’s no stranger to controversy. This remark certainly upset many Oilers fans.

But no need for anyone to lose their cool over Fischler’s assessment as I strongly suspect he’s got it wrong. Indeed, it’s going to become increasingly clear in coming weeks that McDavid is the clear choice to win this award.

Two things work against Panarin. First, he’s 24 and he’s played six seasons in Russia’s KHL, so he’s not a raw rookie, he’s a seasoned pro.

Second, Panarin has also had the luxury of playing 761 of his 881 5-on-5 minutes this year with Kane, with 31 of Panarin’s 32 even strength points coming with Kane on the ice.

All this helps put McDavid in the running for the Calder Memorial, as was witnessed by the discussion on Hockey Night in Canada between panelists Nick Kypreos, Elliotte Friedman and Kelly Hrudey:

Said Kypreos of McDavid: “If he’s in the ballpark of 55-60 points, and let’s say Panarin ends up at a point a game which puts him at 80, you almost have to give it to McDavid.”

Friedman: “I think his point total has to start with a six. If he gets to 60 points.”

Added Hrudey: “Who cares? He’s going to be the best player in the game for the next 15 years anyways whether he wins this award or not.”

Have to say that Hrudey nailed it there in terms of the big picture. As for the precise point total it will take for McDavid to win it, I suspect Kyrpeos is correct, that 55 to 60 points is going to do it, though if McDavid does put up 33 points in his last 22 games and reaches 60 points, the vote will be a slam dunk, or it should be.

If McDavid continues on his current pace he’s going to get 54 points, but it’s worth noting that McDavid has been stronger on the attack since he came back from injury. In his first 13 games, he chipped in on 5.3 scoring chances per game and got 12 points. In the last 10 games since coming back from surgery, he’s had 14 points and chipped in on 7.1 chances per game.

The increase in his performance and production has mainly been due to McDavid’s improved power play performance. The Oilers coaches have somewhat fixed the poor tactics of the Oilers’ top unit, moving McDavid to his choice shooting and passing spot on the right half-wall, with righty sniper Jordan Eberle on the left half-wall. The unit still lacks a top pointman, as Andrej Sekera is far too prone to shoot a weak slapper from the point as opposed to feeding the puck to the far more dangerous Eberle and the far, far more dangerous McDavid, but perhaps the Oilers power play coach will also note this problem and solve it, either moving Sekera off this unit, or getting him to pass more to the half-wall aces.

If McDavid continues on his current post-surgery pace, he’ll get 33 points in his final 22 games, and finish with 60 points in 45 games. 1.33 points per game.

Given Panarin’s age, veteran pro status and his good luck in playing with Kane, that should be enough for Connor McDavid to win the Calder this year. Perhaps the crucial factor though is this: if McDavid plays like a true generational talent throughout his rookie season, what writer is going to want to look like a bozo by overlooking his undeniable talent?

A few won’t mind. But most will.

]]>http://edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/nhl/cult-of-hockey/no-matter-what-fischler-says-mcdavid-an-excellent-bet-to-win-nhl-rookie-of-the-year/feed0021116-Oilers0509.JPG-43852367-Oilers0509-W.jpgdavidstaplesedmontonoilers.sc.conversions.60gCult of Hockey: Kelly Hrudey high on Flames. But too high?http://edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/nhl/cult-of-hockey/connor-mcdavid-johnny-gaudreau-kelly-hrudey-taylor-hall-446196
http://edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/nhl/cult-of-hockey/connor-mcdavid-johnny-gaudreau-kelly-hrudey-taylor-hall-446196#commentsSun, 17 Jan 2016 15:13:11 +0000http://edmontonjournal.com/?p=446196]]>Hockey Night in Canada asked a provocative question last night during the Edmonton Oilers-Calgary Flames game: Which core group of players would you rather have, Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers’ top players or Johnny Gaudreau and the Calgary Flames’ top players?

Also on the Oilers list was Taylor Hall, Leon Draisaitl, Darnell Nurse and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.

On the Flames list was also Sean Monahan, Sam Bennett, Dougie Hamilton and T.J. Brodie.

Equally provocative as the question was the answer given by long-time analyst Kelly Hrudey.

“I’m so torn with that list,” said Hrudey. “For sure, Connor McDavid, but then you think, is Bennett going to be better than Nugent-Hopkins down the road? I would say yes. I think Monahan and Draisailt, it’s a wash. So I’m just so torn on this. It’s one of the most difficult little sorta quizzes we’ve ever had.”

Hmmm….

How many NHL execs would pick Calgary’s top group, as strong as it is, over a group including McDavid, who looks to be the NHL’s next superstar? Would Brian Burke even do that?

Gaudreau and Hall might be a wash, though Hall is bigger, and that matters into today’s dead puck NHL. Draisaitl and Monahan might be a wash as well, though Draisaitl’s bulk and power game likely gives him the edge. Sam Bennett has great promise, while Nugent-Hopkins is slumping this year, but that one is close as well. Dougie Hamilton vs Darnell Nurse looks to be a bit of a saw-off at this point, with either player capable of out-pacing the other.

Let’s say these four are close, too close to call. Sound fair?

That leaves Connor McDavid vs T.J. Brodie in a head-to-head match up decide this thing.

Now T.J. Brodie is a helluva good player. The Oilers should only be so lucky as to have a d-man as talented as Brodie. But speaking of luck, Edmonton got the McDavid golden ticket, the rights to the best young player under the age of 25 in the hockey world, and you have to think that would give Edmonton the edge here.

While Hrudey overlooked the magnitude of McDavid’s impact, the sensible Elliotte Friedman did not: “A 19-year-old Connor McDavid, knowing you get seven years of him at least, until he hits free agency, even though he’s one forward and it’s harder for a forward by himself to win a Stanley Cup anymore, I think he tips the scales.”

Crushed it, Mr. Friedman.

Panelist Nick Kypreos said long-term the five players on the Calgary list had a better chance of being intact than the Edmonton list. “I do not see a long-term future with Draisaitl, McDavid and Nugent-Hopkins,” Kypreos said, mentioning the Nugent-Hopkins for Seth Jones trade rumour that never came to pass. He expected to see such a trade eventually, Kypreos said: “That’s the next move, moving forward. Whether it happens in a year or two remains to be seen, but ultimately there’s not enough room for Nugent-Hopkins, McDavid and Draisaitl.”

Friedman said the window to flip RNH for a d-man hasn’t closed.

I’d say the window on Calgary growing dissatisfied with one of its Top 5 — when he gets into a prolonged slump in his two-way play as RNH has been in for a few months — hasn’t closed either.

This brings me to an astute comment during the game, an exchange between host Paul Romaniuk and the excellent colour commentator Mike Johnson.

Romaniuk: “The Oilers do have trouble scoring. You look back the last 14 games they’ve played, they’ve only scored 23 goals, and they’ve scored two or less goals in 10 of the last 23 games.”

Johnson: “This notion of the high-skilled, high-flying Oilers with all of these high-end draft picks has not really borne itself out in the goal department for years now.”

Johnson got that right, and it was certainly seen in this game, with the Flames putting up 11 Grade A chances and the Oilers just three. Indeed, Hrudey’s comment wasn’t the oddest moment of the night. That came when Calgary’s Jonas Hiller, who let in a stinker goal and faced few Grade A scoring chances, was named first star of the game over Edmonton’s Cam Talbot, who aced the shoot-out and stopped a blitzkrieg of Flames Grade A chances, clearly stealing the win for his team.

Maybe they should start calling it Hockey Night in Calgary.

Here’s the running count:

]]>http://edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/nhl/cult-of-hockey/connor-mcdavid-johnny-gaudreau-kelly-hrudey-taylor-hall-446196/feed8compdavidstaplesedmontonflames1flames2Cult of Hockey: Kelly Hrudey changes his tune big time on Ryan Nugent-Hopkinshttp://edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/nhl/cult-of-hockey/kelly-hrudey-changes-his-tune-on-ryan-nugent-hopkins
http://edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/nhl/cult-of-hockey/kelly-hrudey-changes-his-tune-on-ryan-nugent-hopkins#commentsSun, 18 Oct 2015 06:34:14 +0000http://edmontonjournal.com/?p=379197]]>Last February 7, more than half-way through the 2014-15 NHL season, Hockey Night in Canada analyst Kelly Hrudey made what the Cult’s Bruce McCurdy called a scathing critique of Edmonton Oilers centre Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.

“I know if I’ve got years and years and years of Connor McDavid and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins as my top two centres, I’m feeling pretty good,” analyst Elliotte Friedman said on Saturday night’s broadcast.

Then Hrudey jumped in: “Now is there a player in the National Hockey League at that age that took bigger strides than Nugent-Hopkins last year? Like, he went from being really good to being a really excellent centreman.”

Quite the compliment.

And there’s no doubt that RNH had his best year of two-way hockey last year, but that strong play started early in the year, which is why Oilers fans suffered some cognitive dissonance with “Ryan Nugent Hopkins” and “third-line centre” being used in the same sentence in February.

All that said, RNH has improved from year to year in the NHL, with the main thing holding back his play being an injured shoulder and shoulder surgery in his first two seasons. By 2013-14, he was functioning at a high-level as a two-way player, and that reputation was cemented in last season.

In any case, good to see RNH get a hugely positive appraisal from Friedman and Hrudey. The young centre has endured a lot of losing and adversity in his four years in Edmonton, but he’s earning the respect of the league, just as he should.

At the Cult

]]>http://edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/nhl/cult-of-hockey/kelly-hrudey-changes-his-tune-on-ryan-nugent-hopkins/feed7101815-HKN_Oilers_Flames_20151017-gall4-W.jpgdavidstaplesedmontonAs third-liners go, this Ryan Nugent-Hopkins fellow is pretty good at hockeyhttp://edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/nhl/cult-of-hockey/as-third-liners-go-this-ryan-nugent-hopkins-fellow-is-pretty-good-at-hockey
http://edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/nhl/cult-of-hockey/as-third-liners-go-this-ryan-nugent-hopkins-fellow-is-pretty-good-at-hockey#respondTue, 24 Mar 2015 19:15:02 +0000http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/?p=216295]]>Edmonton Oilers fans might recall February 7 being a particularly low point of their club’s dismal 2014-15 campaign. On that night they got shellacked 5-1 on national TV by the Toronto Maple Leafs, a team that I think it’s safe to say is “widely disliked” in Oil Country (not to mention plenty of other places in the true north strong and free). The Leafs were on an 11-game losing streak at the time, but they took the Oilers to the woodshed from the first minute of the game to about the 59th.

On that humilating night for Oil fans, perhaps the lowest blow was landed by the always-supportive folks at Hockey Night in Canada. Kelly Hrudey delivered a scathing critique of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, calling him a “second or third line centre”. I don’t have the exact quote to hand, but those are the words that continue to ring in my ears. Hrudey may have prevaricated in his usual fashion to suggest that was as of right now, and that the kid still had a bright future, yada yada yada.

A THIRD-liner? That’s the part that had me sputtering on Twitter that night, to wit:

I was hardly alone in my reaction to Hrudey’s claim. (Oil Country doesn’t exactly agree about everything, but don’t mess with our Nuge! Especially not from some ivory tower in Toronto.)

Hrudey’s assesment could be dismissed on the basis of ice time alone, as RNH already led all NHL forwards in average ice time per game. Which doesn’t fit most definitions of a second-liner, let alone a third.

Ice time aside, though, an argument could be made on the “second line” part of Hrudey’s assertion. From a production standpoint, RNH was listed as the 44th highest-scoring centre on the NHL’s list at that moment. Even discounting the several wingers that are wrongly or obsoletely listed as pivots, that certainly put RNH well off the front page of scorers on NHL.com.

Today, however, things look a little different. RNH has surged comfortably onto the first page of centre scoring (conveniently listed by NHL.com in groups of 30), in fact has moved halfway up from #44 to #22 in the month and a half since Hrudey’s remarks. Take out non-centres like Jiri Hudler and Filip Forsberg (who has taken all of 8 faceoffs in his 91-game NHL career), and he scrapes into the top 20.

But it’s the matter in which he got from there to here which is particularly eyebrow-raising. Using War-On-Ice.com’s superb date range function, let’s start from February 9, the day of Oilers next game after the Hockey Night in Toronto fiasco. RNH didn’t score that night, but did contribute to the build-up of a goal, drew a penalty, and generally played well in a 2-1 win at New Jersey. The next night he had an assist on Long Island; two nights later, a pair of goals in Montreal, including the game-tying marker with the goalie out. That was the start of a very nice roll:

NHL top scoring centres, Feb 09-Mar 23

Some pretty nice names on that list, as one might expect, including the one at the very top. I’ve cut it off at the top nine because there’s 9-way tie for 10th at 17 points, a group that includes sluggos like Anze Kopitar, Jeff Carter, Joe Thornton, and Nicklas Backstrom. Veterans all… it’s worth reminding ourselves (and Hrudey) that RNH is still a fresh-faced 21-year-old, significantly younger than everybody named or listed above save Calgary’s Sean Monahan, another Alberta-based youngster who pretty clearly is “for real”.

We shouldn’t read too much into this, it’s just a slice of the season, albeit a significant one at ~25%. But it should suffice to allay any concerns that Nugent-Hopkins is a second- let alone third-rate talent. In fact he’s been ramping up the pace, erupting over the past 8 games for 7 goals and 8 assists.

A big part of that has been the return of Nuge the Powerplay Witch. We addressed this in a mid-season post that probed into the youngster’s overall production numbers:

But really, folks, do you think RNH’s PP production will remain in the sewer indefinitely? I don’t think it’s likely at all. This is a guy who entered the 2014-15 season averaging a shade under 25 powerplay points per 82 games; surely it’s the current dry spell which is the outlier, and a correction is bound to come sooner than later.

That correction took a while, but has finally kicked in in a serious way. At the time of that writing RNH had just three powerplay points (and 25 in total) through 39 games. By Game 63 (his 61st), he still had mustered just 1-6-7 with the man advantage. In the last ten, however, he has matched that with another 1-6-7, and now has 14 powerplay points on the season. Which is still down a couple of quarts from what one might have expected, or should expect next season come to that. But enough to bolster his solid even-strength production and raise his seasonal boxcars to 23-31-54 with nine games left on the calendar. This from a guy who projected to just 50 points at midseason; it now seems that 60 is within reach.

A sidebar to the powerplay production is RNH’s role in causing them. In the same Feb 09-Mar 23 date range cited above, War-On-Ice stats show that Nugent-Hopkins was also #1 among centres in penalty differential (Penalties Drawn minus Penalties Taken) with a whopping +9.

He hasn’t done this on his own, of course. Linemate Jordan Eberle has been every bit as hot, with the two Oilers ranking 1-2 among NHL scorers over the past month or so. It’s been an impressive outburst from a pair of players generally considered to be reliant on Taylor Hall for a chunk of their production. In his absence, they’ve made do nicely with Benoit Pouliot on the port side, and fellow forwards Anton Lander and Teddy Purcell on their powerplay unit. That’s an encouraging development, one that may free up Hall to light up another line.

In light of subsequent events, Oilers fans should take a minute to reflect on Kelly Hrudey’s comments once again. Maybe we should be thanking him. It could be that ours weren’t the only ears that were burning that night.

What goes on in RNH’s ears, or more importantly between them, is a lot. From first viewingas a draft lottery prospect with Red Deer Rebels, the youngster has always impressed this observer as an elite processor of the game, with immaculate fundamentals and an innate ability to take the proper routes to the puck or to the optimum destination of the moment. In recent times, that “optimum destination” has been ever more frequently the opposition’s net.

The last few years, Mark Lee has handled play-by-play duties while former NHL goaltender Kevin Weekes has been responsible for colour commentary. The Vancouver Sun’s Iain MacIntyre tweeted the names of their replacements on Monday night.

Great news for hockey fans in VAN, CGY, EDM: CBC’s new Western HNIC crew is Rick Ball and Kelly Hrudey.

With all due respect to Kevin Weekes – a good-natured and clearly passionate colour commentator – adding Kelly Hrudey to the mix is an instant upgrade. Hrudey is a superb broadcaster who has been excellent in every role HNIC has placed him in, from his early Behind the Mask segments to his most recent work as an in-studio analyst. He’s more polished than the comparatively inexperienced Weekes, and adds gravitas to a broadcast that sometimes seemed to be treated as an afterthought by CBC.

Hrudey is also familiar with his new play-by-play partner, the Team 1040’s Rick Ball. Ball is a strong play-by-play man, but fans outside of Vancouver will note that CBC has once again chosen a Canucks broadcaster to call the evening game. Still, Ball is another welcome addition to a program that has struggled in this area since the departure of Jim Hughson for the early game.

“Get him out of there right now!” Milbury calls for O’Sullivan’s benching.

I thought hockey fans could be tough and nasty in their player critiques on the Oilogosphere, but CBC announcers Mike Milbury and Kelly Hrudey just got as harsh as any anonymous Internet hater. The two CBC announcers thrashed and trashed Oilers forward Patrick O’Sullivan after the first period of the Oilers-Hawks game on Saturday night, bashing him for not going hard after a puck along the boards, evidently so he could avoid body contact with Hawks defender Duncan Keith.

At least that’s how it looked to me, and that’s certainly how it looked to both Hrudey and Milbury. Hrudey started off the hammering, then tagged off and Milbury utterly put the boots to the young Oilers forward.

Said Hrudey, as the replay aired, “Watch the puck battle, or the non-existent puck battle. He doesn’t even want it right here. You have to want that puck and get it on your stick and do something.”

Said Milbury: “This is what really keeps people out of the league. Patrick O’Sullivan, tremendously talented. This is a bail out. Let’s call it what is is. A bail out. I don’t want to pay the price to win the hockey game. They’re seeing that on the bench. Pat Quinn sees that on the bench. His teammates see that on the bench.”

It was a terrible moment for this young player, his lack of fight for that puck, but it’s a symptom of the game he has been playing, a not very aggressive, not very intense outside game. He hardly ever takes the puck to the net, something he did more regularly when he first came to the Oilers last spring in a trade for Erik Cole.

O’Sullivan, 24, has just four goals in 23 games this year, with a shooting percentage of 5.8 per cent, which might be viewed as bad luck which he will soon snap out of except for the fact that he’s a career 7.0 per cent shooter in the NHL.

Maybe he’s not generating enough close in, high percentage shots, the type that come from charging the net and/or screening. I can’t recall him screening the goalie much at all this year. According to Behind the Net, he does shoot the puck from a greater distance, on average, than most other Oilers forwards. For instance, Andrew Cogliano, who does go to the net, has an average shot distance of 26.3 feet, while O’Sullivan’s is 31.4 feet.

If O’Sullivan was sent to the minors for a wake-up call, I’d say the move was deserved, not that I expect that to happen, not at his salary, and not with what new Oilers GM Steve Tambellini has invested in this player.

Some folks really liked the trade that brought in O’Sullivan, partly because Erik Cole was an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year, but mainly because they put a lot of stock in two stats, the fact that O’Sullivan took a lot of shots and the fact that he was part of a Kings unit that outshot the opposition. It’s not clear now how significant either of those two things were, but we’ve seen enough of O’Sullivan now to know that whatever good was happening on the ice when he was with the Kings, he certainly wasn’t leading the charge.

Other observers, who didn’t rely on the stats so much but could go by what they had seen of the player, were more circumspect about O’Sullivan. Helene Elliott of the L.A. Times said: “He’s not aggressive or very physical, but he will work the boards and go into the corners.”

O’Sullivan has one more year after this season on a deal that pays him $2.9 million a year, a huge chunk of the Oilers’ salary cap.

Like so many of the young Oilers forwards, he does appear to have some skill, but he must raise the level of fight and intensity in his game or he will not be in the NHL past his current contract.

I suggest he be given several hours of videotape from last season’s Stanley Cup finals so he can watch the play of Dan Cleary, a player much like O’Sullivan who has transformed himself into a tough, cagey battler, doing most of his work right in front of the goalie and becoming a valuable member of a great team.